We rent bikes in Karlsruhe and head to Lindau to start our trip

    Lucy and I finally rented our bikes and got ready to start our adventure in earnest.
    Our original plan was for us to start two days earlier in Chur, Switzerland. My hope was to rent or even buy a bike in Heidelburg, Germany, and then travel to Chur to start our trip.
    We arrived in Heidelburg on a Saturday and nothing was open. I had decided that if I couldn’t buy or rent a bike in Heidelburg I would just rent from the Swiss rail station in Chur. But the cost was simply outrageous, so we waited until Monday and rented a bike in Karlsruhe from a guy operating as Mike’s Bikes. The cost for two bikes for almost two weeks was 230 euros, which was just a little more than half of what we would have had to pay if we had tried to rent in Switzerland.

"Mike's" real name is Martin

    Mike's real name is Martin; he explained the Mike thing to me but I didn't understand. He rents mostly Giant brand bikes, which are considered a cheaper model, which is just fine by me. Those wanting to pay more for a fancier bike can look elsewhere. He has a lot of bikes, and with advance notice could easily equip a group of 40 or more.
    This fee included use of two waterproof panniers, as my bags were too large for the Bushwacker grocery panniers that I brought with me. The Bushwackers worked great for Lucy, though. I’m going to devote a full blog post to this, and carrying one’s belongings while biking is a pretty darn important thing.
    Fortunately our stays in the Heidelburg area didn’t cost much. For our first night in Heidelburg we stayed at the Crowne Plaza on an 80-euro advance purchase rate. A bit high for me but the hotel was near the old town. There was a barber shop connected to the hotel and I got a much-needed haircut, as my hair was getting really sweaty from the heat.
    The next night I used Club Carlson points for a free night in Heppeheim; I was cheated, as I paid extra points for a superior room and didn’t get it. The next night I used a Marriott Rewards certificate for a free night in Karlsruhe. As far as we could tell there was nothing in Karlsruhe but cheap bike rentals, but feel free to make your own judgments.
    Yesterday we got a late start after renting our bikes and headed to Lindau, a little jut-out almost-island on the Bodensea, also known as Lake Constance. Our hotel cost 80 euros, and is one of the few that I’ve had to pony up the money for. The breakfast was nice, but there was no air conditioning. Our room had neither a bathroom nor shower. The location was nice, though
    We had to take fairly slow trains to Lindau as we were carrying bikes, which are not allowed on the faster ICE trains. As a result we didn’t arrive until fairly late. I wish we had made it early, because Lindau is a neat place. We spent some time the next day just wandering about to make up for what we missed the day before.
   Much to our surprise, Lindau closes early. At 10 p.m. everything was closing and we headed back to our hotel to go to bed. There was no air-conditioning, and the room was a sweltering-hot 75 degrees, if not more. Even worse, apparently everything didn’t close at 10 p.m., because at 2 a.m. a bunch of rowdy college kids walked under my window waking me up.
    Enough for this post. My next will detail our first full day of actual bike riding.

Paris, home of lost luggage and really stinky antiperspirants

    Lucy and I have arrived in Paris, thanks to a $50 fare on Iberia Airlines, although we actually flew on its low-cost carrier, Vueling.

    Fifty dollars is a great airfare. Unfortunately, the bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price. Vueling/Iberia lost my little checked suitcase, which had my seersucker suit jacket, two paris of shoes, several pairs of pants, plus toiletries. Plus socks. Plus more.

    I’m not happy. Technically I’m entitled to replace some of these items, but I’m at the mercy of the airline in seeking reimbursement. European clothes are terrible; they don’t fit the local citizenry properly, and I’m sure none of them will fit me. Plus, from a cost standpoint a really nice pair of pants that costs $25 in the U.S. costs about $200 in Europe. Did I say I’m not happy.

    I went to a Monoprix today to buy some toiletries to replace those in my bag. The St. Michael Monoprix is about as crappy as they come, by the way. Among the things that I needed to buy was antiperspirant. I spent 30 minutes looking at and smelling the varieties on offer. All of the products contained perfume. I don’t want my antiperspirant to work by stinking more than I do. I want an absolute absence of odor. Why can’t I have this? Why? (To the store’s credit they did not have Right Guard and Mennen Speed Stick (the brown kind), which stink worse than any human I’ve ever smelled). I finally bought a product that I thought didn't smell too bad, but the odor from it is making me sick.

    Did I say these jackasses have lost my luggage and I’m not happy?

    Paris was not part of our original plan. I was willing to fly almost anywhere in Central Europe, but the $50 fare to Paris was the cheapest by almost $100 per person, so that’s where we went.

   Two years ago my dad took the entire family on a Mediterranean Cruise, after which Lucy and I spent four days in Paris before returning home. Last year we managed to scrape together enough frequent flyer miles and hotel points for a family vacation to Paris and London.

    So I feel a little like Forrest Gump. Due to the way the airline tickets were priced, Lucy and I had to go to Paris, AGAIN.

    I had planned to make Paris a quick stop, but last year and the year before Lucy was sorely disappointed that she didn’t get to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Tickets have to be purchased a certain number of days in advance, but I discovered that you have to be sitting at your computer right at 9 a.m. Paris time (that’s about 2 a.m. Mississippi time), as the tickets sell out in a matter of minutes.

    I finally got the Eiffel Tower tickets, but using them requires us to stay in Paris for four days. There are worse fates.

    For the past three years I’ve purchased a goodly number of Choice Hotel points during the American Express Daily Getaways promotion. I’ve managed to use these to get decent hotel rooms relatively cheaply. For example, before our family cruise two years ago I was able to treat the entire extended family to a free night at the Hotel Diana in Venice. My cost, about $38 per room, versus about $200 or more if we simply paid cash.

    I’ve booked quite a number of nights with these points for this trip, including our Paris hotel, the Andre Latin. The cost in points per night is 20,000, so I’m shelling out just under $80 per night for a decent Paris hotel room in the Latin Quarter. It’s more than I’d like to pay, but I’m not sure one can pay any less in Paris.

    Now I’m just praying that my luggage will arrive tonight and be delivered to my hotel tomorrow.

No such thing as a 'free' supper after all

    In my last post I reported that our hotel in Lisbon was pre-paid and cost $51 per night. This was in error. The rate was actually 52 euros per night; a good deal still, just not as good a deal.

    At checkout I also discovered the mystery of the free meal voucher that we were given. At the time I booked the room I checked the option allowing me to pay for one meal in advance. So a mediocre buffet that would have cost the two of us 32 euros if purchased on the spot “only” cost us 30 euros through our advance purchase. We could have had a far better dinner for less money in Old Town Lisbon.

     With the exception of the overpriced buffet meal Lisbon was a budget destination. We bought a subway pass, two museum tickets, plus a few beers and Cokes, and that’s about it; plus the Augmentin for my sinus infection.

Lisbon has been an unexpected surprise

    Sometimes a city will surprise you, and so it has been with Lisbon.
    I don’t think of Portugal as a wealthy county in relation to other EU nations. Democracy came to Portugal while I was in high school, so the history here is quite different from most other European countries.
    In terms of per-capita income, Portugal ranks behind Greece and Estonia, and ahead of Poland and Lithuania. So the country isn’t rolling in money.
    The Lisbon airport was certainly unimpressive. The airport is mostly served by smaller planes which park on the tarmac. We had to take a bus into the terminal building.
    We resisted the urge to just take a taxi to our hotel, which is an easy temptation after a long flight into an unknown city. Instead we headed for the metro. The constant effort to save the $20 or $30 that can be so easily thrown away while traveling is what makes it possible to travel.
    We must have looked prosperous, because two French ladies gave us their unused metro tickets while we were waiting in line to buy our own tickets. My experience is that free metro tickets are always given to those who look like they need them the least, so at least we didn’t look needy.
    The Metro was remarkably clean and modern; certainly far better than the fine systems offered by Paris or London. It’s amazing how nice a metro can be in a city that doesn’t suffer the homeless to defecate, sleep, and urinate all over the common areas!
    Lisbon is a bit like San Francisco, with hills everywhere. Major roads are on various levels, and the sidewalks run up and down a bit like exit ramps. It can be confusing. But the city as a whole is very clean, modern, and pleasant to visit. It's one of the more pleasant places I've been.
    We stayed at a Novotel hotel, in the north part of the city. The downside of this hotel was that it wasn’t really within walking distance of Old Town Lisbon; there were few restaurants in the area and seeing anything required a subway ride.
    The upside was that it is a very nice hotel that I purchased through an advance-purchase special a couple of months ago for $52 per night. A huge breakfast buffet was included every morning, and we got one free supper as well. Thanks to the huge breakfast we did without lunch, and got by with just a snack for our first two nights.
    My biggest unexpected expense in Lisbon has been for some Augmentin. I’ve got a nasty sinus infection that simply will not go away. The cost in Lisbon for sixteen 875-mg Augmentin is about $12, which is pretty reasonable in my book. And the pharmacists were highly trained and did not need a pesky doctor’s prescription.

    On our first day in Lisbon we slept. That’s it. We managed to get checked into our room at 2:30 p.m. and went straight to bed. Lucy slept straight through to the next morning. I got up at around 8 p.m. and had a beer and mini-pizza in the hotel lobby and went back to bed.

Harry Potter was here?

    On Day Two we took a nap after our huge breakfast, followed by a visit to El Cortes Ingles department store and a visit to the old town, where we toured the Church of San Roque and the attached museum. We were mightily impressed, as virtually every surface was covered in gold leaf. Lucy noticed what looked like the Sign of the Deathly Hallows on one of the paintings in the attached museum, which suggests those novels may in fact be based on true events. I couldn't help but notice that the paintings seemed to have a much more vibrant style than paintings I've seen in other countries from a similar period.
    On Day Three we again visited the El Cortes Ingles department store, but still managed not to buy anything. We discovered that the little horsies on Ralph Lauren shirts are about 25 percent larger in Portugal than they are on the American version (we measured). We also saw some people wearing the grotesque Polo shirts with the one-foot-high horsey. Why? We also visited the Castle of King Jorge, atop Lisbon's highest hill.
    Sadly, we missed the Gulbenkian Museum, which is closed on Mondays. We return to Lisbon briefly before our return home, so it is on our list of things to yet to see.
    So the takeaway is that Lisbon is one of the most difficult cities to see in Europe. There is but a single train per day to and from Madrid, and it's an overnighter. But it's a great place to visit. I look forward to coming back for a single day before our return home. I was very surprised at how impressed I was with everything here.
    Tomorrow we head to Paris. Right now I’m off to sleep.

Chapter two, in which we learn advantages of clinging to window or aisle seats

    I mentioned in my previous post that we had managed to get really cheap tickets to Europe. We flew on USAir.
    The plane we flew on explains part of the reason for the low price. It was a 757-200 with 3-3 seating, a plane more suited for domestic flights than international travvel. There was no IFE system. Movies were shown on television screens in the center aisle. I kept wondering if Jimmy Carter was still president.
    Whenever booking seats for two on a three-across grid I always take a window and aisle, in hopes that the middle seat will stay open. I then check back regularly to make sure the middle seat hasn’t filled. If it does I’ll move to a new row.
    On our flight the middle seat showed empty until our check-in a few hours before the flight. I had high hopes that we would therefore have some extra space.
    When we arrived at our row there was already a man in the center seat. By mutual agreement Lucy and I refrained from speaking to each other, in hopes that this middle occupant wouldn’t know we were traveling together, and thus get the idea that one of us should volunteer for middle-seat duty.
    A minute after we took our seats my phone vibrated, indicating an arriving text. Since I have a record, I will share our conversation:

Lucy [all exchanges by text message]: Course of action, if any?
Me: You can ask him if he would like window. I think he’s French (note: Lucy speaks a slight amount of French).
Lucy: Nah...
Me: Well you can’t yik yak w me.
Lucy: Then you can ask him if he wants the aisle...
Me: I am too fat to sit in middle
Lucy: And I’m too comfortable to move. So I think ima just kick back with the book. Let’s see how long it takes for me to finish

    And so Lucy and I headed to Europe with a stranger between us, each clinging to our coveted aisle or window seat, pretending not to know each other.
    I was courteous. I leaned out towards the aisle, giving the stranger the full use of the armrest. But then a miracle happened.
    The stranger motioned that he wanted to go to the bathroom. He never came back. We saw him somehow manage to get an aisle seat a number of rows in front of us. I think it was a seat that you have to pay for, but he just took it (on USAir the premium seats offer nothing more than early boarding and easy exit; no extra legroom or free drinks).
    So for almost the entire flight Lucy and I had an empty middle seat between us. Lucy stretched out a bit, but I kept my armrest down. I just enjoyed being able to use the armrest and my right arm without touching or being touched by a stranger. Of course, if we had offered this stranger one of our comfortable window or aisle seats we would have had his company for the entire flight, no doubt touching us the whole way. So standing firm paid off.
    USAir now offers only a single free glass of wine with dinner, poured from a milk carton. It’s pretty wretched stuff. I accepted my free glass and bought an additional airplane bottle of wine for $7; it, too, was closer to wretched than good.
    Only after my free glass of wine had been poured and my $7 mini-bottle purchased did I discover that the airline offered both Conundrum and Meomi Pinot Noir – two of my favorite wines – for $15 per half bottle. This is about what it would cost at a liquor store. I desperately wanted to buy one of these half bottles, but figured that amount of wine would either make me very entertaining or very unentertaining to my fellow passengers. So I drank my rotgut, put some tunes on my Android, and took a fitful nap.
    Today’s lesson: Bring your own in-flight entertainment. Never voluntarily take a middle seat. Always read the airline drink offerings before ordering.

And we're off . . .

    My daughter Lucy and I have embarked on a grand adventure of sorts. I managed to score us a couple of $600 round-trip tickets to Europe.

    Our tickets are from Boston to Lisbon. So to use them we had to get there, which in the end meant driving to Atlanta so that I could use a companion ticket so that Lucy could fly for free. After factoring in the cost of three weeks of parking I’ve realized this was a terrible mistake; I could have booked a flight out of Memphis months ago, but I kept waiting for the fares to drop. They never did.

    In the end, after tallying all costs we still will have managed to get from Oxford to Europe and back again for less than $1,000 each; flying out of Memphis would have cost almost double.

    Last year we spent four days on rented bicycles. This year we plan to spend almost a dozen. I’m fat and short of breath, but we plan to stay on flat ground.

    My hope is that we will convert my blog into a travelogue for the next three weeks, as we recount our adventure. Where we’ve managed to save money, I’ll share it. Where I’ve managed to blow money needlessly, I will try to admit it.

July 13, Dreisbach to Trier by bike

    July 13, Dreisbach to Trier by way of Saarlouis (again)

    The Dreisbach youth hostel had Wi-Fi available for three dollars. It wasn't the greatest signal, but I was able to get my email, including one from the Hotel Ratskeller in Saarlouis informing me that I had left my "charger." They offered to mail it to me.
    I needed the charger. I have a Galaxy Note, and like almost everyone with one of these phones my mini-USB charger has gone out, so I have to charge the phone with an external battery charger. So Lucy and I returned to Saarlouis to get the charger.
    We almost made a terrible mistake. Dreisbach doesn't have an active rail station, so we would need to bike to Mettlach, about four miles ahead, or backtrack to Besseringen about a mile.  I almost took the quickest route, but chose instead to bike on to Mettlach. Mettlach is less than a mile from Dreisbach as the crow flies, but as the bicyclist peddles, four miles. You have to bike around a long peninsula.
    The high-quality bike trail from Saarlouis to Dreisbach also peters out at Dreisbach. We were forced to use public roads for a short while, after which a more modest bike trail of hard-pack gravel appeared along the Saar.
    The ride from Dreisbach to Mettlach is simply beautiful -- the kind of natural beauty that is almost a religious experience. I've included a couple of film clips at the top of this post to give an idea of what the area looks like.

click to enlarge

    The train ride to Saarlouis took perhaps 20 minutes. We biked to our former hotel, picked up the charger, and then decided to get something to eat. We ended up having an ice cream lunch. Lucy had four scoops of chocolate. I had a waffle with ice cream, whipped cream, and strawberries. Mine came out after Lucy finished hers, and for some reason she thought I needed help eating it.
    After "lunch" we trained to Kanzem. This was only eight miles from  Trier, so it's not like we were doing an intense day of biking. I'd say we biked a total of 15 miles.
    When we started out the day, we quickly found that our muscles weren't sore, but our butts sure were! For the first few minutes we wanted to quit, but it got better.
    Shortly before we reached Konz the bike trails became more expansive, with the grass carefully trimmed and lots of park benches and so forth. The area along the Mosel from Konz to Trier is heavily used, by bikers, walkers, roller bladers, you name it. Oh, and there are a lot of ducks and swans to be seen.

click to enlarge

    We stopped to snap a photo of a couple of swans, and the big white one marched up to Lucy, stuck its head in the air and honked loudly a couple of times. We interpreted that to mean "get out of my space," so we retreated.
    Our hotel for the evening was again the Park Plaza in Trier, this time obtained solely through the use of 38,000 Club Carlson points. They didn't have the points and cash offer as there was a music festival in town. The festival included fireworks, so we weren't in Trier by accident. I love fireworks!


 

July 12, Saarlouis to Dreisbach: a bit boring, but great bike trails and signage the whole way

July 12, 2013: Saarlouis to Dreisbach, Germany

    After our night in Saarlouis, Lucy and I were ready to start peddling. We headed back towards the train station, and when we hit the Saar River we took a left instead of crossing the bridge.

    The bike trail from Saarlouis to Dreisbach is about as good as one could ask for. For 97 percent of the trip the bike trail runs right along the Saar. It's a nice, wide, paved, concrete, or bricked bike path. The worst that can be said of it is that a few of the joints are a little rough.
    But overall the bike path is almost all one could ask for.

    About five miles north of Saarlouis we came to a river lock and a sign pointing across the river to a biergarten. We stopped by and I had a baguette pizza and a beer; Lucy had ice cream. All of the customers were on bike.
    Lucy didn't know what a "lock" was. Back in the olden days we were taught this is social studies, but today they spend all their time learning about the Kingdom of Mali, which is about as useful as teats on a breastplate (or boar hog).
    The only downside to the Saarlouis to Dreisbach bike trail is that it is a little boring. The Mosel has more villages right on the river, with steep hills full of vineyards. The Saar actually has a substantial amount of river delta land. Of course, learning about these things is what the trip is all about; so if we had fewer opportunities to stop and more to just see farmland, that's what this type of touring is all about.
    When we arrived at Dreisbach getting to the local youth hostel required navigating a large hill. We pushed our bikes and were not ashamed.
    German youth hostels seem to serve everyone except for what we would tend to think of as "youths." They are open to and you will see lots of families with children, older couples, in fact just about anyone. There are lots of groups with younger kids. The one group you don't see much of is youths aged 16-25. I think these "youths" are looking for more of a party atmosphere, even though you can get a beer or glass of wine at a German youth hostel.
    The Dreisbach hostel had a very institutional feel to it, but everything was spotless. Our room was simple, with a set of bunk beds. Linens were provided.
    We had half-board at the hostel, which cost a few Euros extra. The supper consisted a nice salad bar with feta cheese, Kalamata olives, eggs and other good stuff. Lucy and I had a private table, and a bowl of reconstituted chicken noodle soup was served to us (the kind from the box). For the main course they served us a giant fish stick or fish cake and a bowl of potatoes. The fish cake was a bit greasy; the potatoes were in desperate need of salt and pepper, which was not on the table or readily available. Tarter sauce was on the table, but no ketchup. Fortunately we brought a bunch of Heinz dipping ketchups with us, so Lucy ran up to the room and retrieved them. Our beverage was some pretty dreadful Kool-Aid type drink. A great supper, no. But for the cost, it's hard to beat.
    The next morning breakfast redeemed the mediocre supper. There were hard rolls, ham, salami, cheese, jam, and American style coffee served in a "hottle" at our table. It's all we needed.
    Our total cost for one night at the youth hostel was 43 Euros. This included supper and breakfast. We had to be up and out by 10 a.m., but in a way this was a bonus, as it encouraged us to hurry along.
    For families wishing to tour Europe on the cheap, youth hostels are the way to go -- unless you can use hotel points!

Did I forget to mention the ice cream?

    After arriving in Saarlouis Lucy and I enjoyed a treat on the hotel balcony, overlooking an old market area.
    Lucy got an ice cream. I got a beer.
    The regional beer for the Trier area is Bitburger, a very foamy pilsner with a really hoppy taste; more hoppy than Stella Artois.
    Enough of the beer. I just had to share the photo of Lucy digging into an ice cream treat. These types of dressed up ice cream treats for children are common throughout Europe. Lucy is old enough to order one of the more sophisticated ice cream treats, but the kids' ice cream was cheaper and a lot more fun!
    The restaurant had one treat called the Mickey Mouse. I wonder if they are paying a royalty.

Reliving the past -- Lucy and I are retracing part of my 1975 bike trip

    I’ve been reliving the past for the past couple of days.
    Back in 1975 I went on a bike trip that included a ride up the Mosel and Rhine rivers. I blogged on this about 18 months ago.
    Jinny, Ash, Lucy and I recently visited Paris and London, thanks primarily to Hilton, Delta, and Club Carlson points. I’ve been wanting to do some biking on the Mosel and Saar rivers, so Lucy and I stayed over. Jinny doesn’t have much interest in outdoorsy things and Ash doesn’t travel well, so it’s just the two of us.
    Our trip started out with an all-day train trip from London to Trier, with train changes in Brussels, Cologne, and Koblenz. We arrived at about 8 p.m. in Trier and took a cab to our hotel, the Park Plaza, which cost us 48 Euros plus 10,000 Club Carlson points. We should have walked, but I didn't print out a map ahead of time.
    On July 11 we slept late and rented bikes at the Trier train station. The folks weren’t terribly friendly, but they have lots of bikes and sure are convenient. Our cost for four day’s bike rental was 39 Euros each.
    We left our big suitcases at the hotel for later pickup and just traveled with two small backpacks, which fit in a basket on the back of the bike.

    First stop, Saarlouis, about 50 miles from Trier. Our first attempt to board a train failed. It pulled up at the other end of the station and the doors slammed shut before we could board. The second time around worked. The German regional trains have a car in the front with places for bikes.
    We arrived in Saarlouis at about 4 p.m. and bicycled to our hotel, the Hotel Ratskeller. I confess that I had to push my bike up the hill to cross the River Saar. There was a large pedestrian area around our hotel, and we ended up pushing our bikes through it, too.
    Confession being good for the soul, I must also admit that I got a bit confused as to how to enter our hotel. The hotel is on the upper floors of a building, and where I thought the entrance should be was the sign for another hotel, the “Hotel Eingang.” Lucy finally pointed out that she thought “Eingang” meant “Entrance,” and what do you know, it did!
    A bit of history about the Saar and Saarlouis. The Saar was long squabbled over by Germany and France. Saarlouis is named after King Louis XVI of France, who built fortifications in the town to defend it. After World War II, France kept it as a protectorate, and hoped to keep it permanently. However, the citizens were eventually allowed to vote – with 90 percent voting tto rejoin Germany – and the region was returned by France only in 1957, 12 years after the war’s end.
    Saarlouis really doesn’t have that many important sites, but it is as fine a place to spend the night as I have encountered. There are literally dozens of restaurants in the pedestrian area to choose from. Lucy and I found a pizza place that wasn’t too expensive, so we both ordered a pizza. They forgot to cut it for us, but we just cut it with our forks and knives.
    Our plan for our first day of biking is to pedal our way to Dreisbach, a distance of about 15 miles. We're not trying to set any distance records.

    NOTE: I’m just kidding about the pizza. In much of Europe pizza is served as one piece, and you are expected to eat it like a steak or something. Next trip I’m including a pizza cutter.

I found details of long-ago bike trip up the Mosel and Rhine

(Click to enlarge)

    When I was 14 I took a bicycle trip of Europe with a group out of Florida. It was a three-week trip loosely affiliated with a Baptist church out of Sarasota, Fla., under the direction of the Rev. Tom Watson and his two sons. I suppose I saw their advertisement on the bulletin board at the Holly Springs First Baptist Church Activities Center. I stumbled across my tour materials recently.
    It was a fun trip. There was a devotion time every night, and personally there was a little too much religious emphasis for me. But if you sign up to go it's something you put up with. Patricia Kennedy from Holly Springs also went and had a good time. Her sister, Sylvia, who was 19 or 20, went and was unaware of just how much of a church trip it was. She stayed for a week and then had enough of nightly devotions and went home.
    Our trip started in Luxembourg, and fresh off the plane we visited the American World War II cemetery. We then took a bus to our campsite, in Remich, on the Mosel River, which divides Luxembourg from Germany. From there we rode up the Mosel and then the Rhine, and made good time, as we made it to Cologne in four days. By comparison, some of the Mosel bike tours suggest Trier to Koblenz in six days; on that schedule it would have taken us at least eight days to reach Cologne.
    It looking at our itinerary, shown above, it looks like the trip organizers tended to bunk us down in out-of-the-way towns. I'm sure it was cheaper! We stayed exclusively in campsites, in four-person tents. Some of the campsites were actually pretty nice.
    The first part of the trip was easy biking. We rode up the Mosel and then the Rhine, so it was almost all flat land. It was only after Brussels, when we visited the site of the Battle of the Bulge, that things got tough. I think they call it the "bulge" because there is a "bulge" that you have to go over. No fun! On our first day we peddled 22 miles. On our last day we went more than 60. So we did increase in stamina as we traveled.
    Sites I remember: Trier, Burg Eltz Castle, Cologne, Holland countryside, Amsterdam, Brussels, Waterloo, Bulge, lots of neat, little villages.
    I'm not sure what happened to the Spinning Spokes program. It survived for a number of years. They were doing three tours a year, owned bicycles and had a couple of vans that would take the tents and kitchen gear. I guess nothing lasts forever.
    I'd love to take another bike trip up the Mosel and along the Rhine. There are companies that will sell you a bike trip for top dollar, but for the price they're charging I'd want a limo. I'd like to just take off and stay at youth hostels -- after all, they do have family rooms. Jinny informs me they aren't for our family!
    It was fun once. My guess is that it would be fun to do part of it again.